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Available Parsers

OPAL includes several specialized parsers designed to extract court case data from different Alabama websites. Each parser is optimized for its specific data source.

Parser Overview

Parser Source Command Description
ParserAppealsAL Alabama Appellate Courts ParserAppealsAL Extracts appellate court decisions
Parser1819 1819 News Parser1819 Scrapes legal news from 1819 News
ParserDailyNews Daily News sites ParserDailyNews Extracts court news from daily publications

Parser Details

Alabama Appeals Court Parser

ParserAppealsAL

The primary parser for extracting appellate court decisions from Alabama's official court websites.

Key Features: - JavaScript rendering with Selenium - Court case metadata extraction - Pagination handling - Rate limiting protection

Example: 

python -m opal --url "https://publicportal.alacourt.gov" --parser ParserAppealsAL

1819 News Parser

Parser1819

Specialized parser for the 1819 News website, focusing on legal and court-related news.

Key Features: - Article text extraction - Author and date parsing - Line-by-line content storage - URL pattern filtering

Example: 

python -m opal --url "https://1819news.com/" --parser Parser1819

Daily News Parser

ParserDailyNews

Parser for Alabama Daily News and similar news websites with compatible HTML structures.

Key Features: - Specific HTML class targeting - Author and date extraction - Paragraph-based content parsing - Error resilience with defaults

Example: 

python -m opal --url "https://alabamadailynews.com/" --parser ParserDailyNews

Choosing the Right Parser

By Data Source

  • Official Court Documents: Use appeals-al for authoritative appellate decisions
  • News Coverage: Use parser-1819 or daily-news for journalistic coverage
  • Historical Data: Check parser-specific date ranges in individual guides

By Use Case

  • Legal Research: appeals-al provides full opinion texts
  • Media Monitoring: parser-1819 and daily-news track news coverage
  • Comprehensive Analysis: Combine multiple parsers for complete coverage

Common Options

All parsers support these common command-line options:

# Required options
--url          # Base URL of the website to scrape
--parser       # Parser name (ParserAppealsAL, Parser1819, ParserDailyNews)

# Optional options
--suffix       # URL suffix to filter pages
--max_pages    # Maximum number of pages to process

# Example with all options
python -m opal --url "https://example.com" --parser Parser1819 --suffix "/news/" --max_pages 5

Output files are automatically named with the format: YYYY-MM-DD_ParserName.json

Parser Development

Interested in creating custom parsers? See our Developer Guide for detailed instructions on extending OPAL with new parsers.

Next Steps